Ethel began to think that she did look unusually ill. Her face was flushed, shivering though she was, her lips were dry, her heavy eyes were unnaturally bright. She gently laid her hands, washed now, upon her sister's brow. It felt burning, and Sarah Anne screamed.
"Do keep your hands away! My head is splitting with pain."
Involuntarily Ethel thought of the fever; the danger from which they had been reckoning had passed away. It was a low sort of typhus which had prevailed; not very extensively, and chiefly amidst the poor: the great fear had been, lest it should turn to a more malignant type. About half a dozen deaths had taken place altogether.
"Would you like me to bathe your forehead with water, Sarah Anne?" asked Ethel kindly. "Or to get you some eau-de-Cologne?"
"I should like you to wait until things are asked for, and not to worry me," retorted Sarah Anne.
Ethel sighed. Not for the temper: Sarah Anne was always fractious in illness: but for the suffering she thought she saw, and the half doubt, half dread, which had arisen within her. "I think I had better call mamma," she deliberated to herself. "Though, if she sees nothing unusually the matter with Sarah Anne, she will only be angry with me."
Proceeding to her mother's chamber, Ethel knocked softly. Lady Sarah slept still, but the entrance aroused her.
"Mamma, I do not like to disturb you; I was unwilling to do so: but Sarah Anne is ill."
"Ill again! And only last week she was in bed three days! Poor dear sufferer! Is it her chest again?"
"Mamma, she seems _unusually_ ill. Otherwise I should not have disturbed you. I feared--I thought--you will be angry with me if I say, perhaps?"
"Say what? Don't stand like a statue, Ethel."
Ethel dropped her voice. "Dear mamma, suppose it should be the fever?"
For one startling moment, Lady Sarah felt as if a dagger had pierced her: the next, she turned upon Ethel. Fever for Sarah Anne! how dared she prophesy it? A low, common fever, confined to the poor of the town, and which had subsided; or, all but subsided! Was it likely to return again and come up here to attack her darling child? What did Ethel mean by it?
Ethel, the tears in her eyes, said she hoped it would prove to be only an ordinary headache; it was her love for Sarah Anne which awoke her fears. Lady Sarah proceeded to the sick-room; and Ethel followed. Her ladyship was not in the habit of observing caution, and spoke freely of the "fever" before Sarah Anne; apparently for the purpose of casting blame at Ethel.